Still Waters Run Deep

by Winter Weatherman

Hinata stumbles across a heavily injured Sasuke in the forest and smuggles him into her house. With her father away, anything could happen. An attempt to write SasuHina somewhat realistically without glossing over Sasuke's issues.

19. Starfields

"That isn't how you really feel..."

Hinata said this quietly, nothing more than a whisper in the warm semi-darkness of her familiar bedroom. She watched the anxious twiddle of her forefingers in her lap. "...is it. Sakura-san."

Sakura had sent Naruto out of the room to go help bring the food up. She'd efficiently browbeaten Sasuke into doing the same, Hinata watched him scowl, glare at Sakura- but comply. He seemed to do it just to avoid any further yelling from her. Sakura had squared her shoulders at him and she'd gone a few millimeters into her own forceful growl. Sasuke-kun, go help Naruto please.

Please, she said, but it wasn't a question or even a request. Her tone said- do it. Now. Something passed between them, some wary exchange of glares and secrets. They reminded Hinata of two jounin circling one another, eyeing one another's weapons and weak points. Sasuke made his irritation clear, and she was struck by the change in his manner, his eyes and the ice that suddenly underlined the few words he did say.

She had seen it before. He'd been just as cold and angry, just as silent and dismissive when she'd finally worked up the courage to face him. He'd sat on her futon, not very far from where she was right now. A winter sunrise was behind him, gold and icy pink against snowy grey, edging the elegant planes of his cheekbones with soft light. Then, anger had seemed to lend her strength to not be cowed by his black glare. She had felt the rightness of her position, she had to protect her house. And maybe it was different for her then, because he'd been a stranger, someone easily reduced to a simplistic threat. There was no particular affection or relationship with him then. But he was Sakura's friend. He was Naruto's friend. He spat little curses and insults about them even when he was alone with her. He was coldly furious now, even as he said he would return to them.

Sakura's shadow fell over her, Sakura blocked out the lantern light and she took the brunt of Sasuke's sudden, viciously sharp glare. It was a look that would have made the hair on the back of Hinata's neck stand up. The electrical, oppressive, intense force of his presence, his chakra.

And his anger. She had not been truly afraid of him that morning. But now...

He was a different person with them. Hinata watched him from the floor, from behind Sakura as she stood and barked orders. As she enforced her will- and the hard angry look that he got on his face then was somehow different. She had thought she understood... a little.. of what was going on. They were his friends. They wanted their friend back. And he...

...she had no real idea what he wanted, or how he felt. He'd averted his eyes and changed the subject- and she'd let him. She feared being too intrusive and pushing her way into a delicate situation that didn't involve her. Sakura took charge and had Sasuke and Naruto to leave so that she and Hinata could talk, and Hinata realized this. But only as Sasuke pulled the door closed behind him, and with far more force than was necessary.

He'd said things like- that clumsy useless loser- about Naruto. He'd said- she needs to shut up and mind her own business and leave me alone. And stop encouraging Naruto, she's just making everything worse- about Sakura. He cursed and insulted and spat upon his friends. His friends. His friends! And if that was how he felt about his friends...

She stared at the dissolving subliminal trail of temper and fury he'd left behind. She realized that Sakura had noticed her stare and her distress, she closed her eyes. She wanted to rub them, like maybe she hadn't really seen what she'd thought she'd seen.

She'd thought...

...that he was kind. And maybe he was- to her. But maybe there were parts of him she just didn't know yet, and she had to admit that she didn't really know him that well. She had only known him at all for one intense but short handful of days. Two weeks. Less than that. She had never seen him with other people. Or with the parts of his life he'd run away from. She had only the vaguest warning about what was going on between him and his teammates.

An idea- and a warning. That she should stay out of it. That she should not interfere. She should not push him on this subject. Let him change it, let him mutter the vicious little words to himself- that useless loser! His friends. His anger was too powerful and intense for her to even look at. It would freeze her to the spot and stop her heart. Stay out of it. Don't interfere. He has real problems, Hinata. I know you want to help him, but you can't. He needs professionals, he'll hurt you, he'll ruin your entire life-

Beware.

--

Dusk fell. He lit the lanterns. Nighttime was not the threat it had been. The ghosts shied away. The nightmares seemed to scatter, maybe there really was something to this love business after all. He looked up past Naruto and Sakura's heads, through the sectioned panes of Hinata's window, up to the hard white glow of the moon there. It was a waxing slice, just a short curved dagger slash of light, not the baleful cold eye of the new moon, Tsukuyomi, the indelible memory and flashback trigger of the night.

So he was probably safe. There would be no undignified panic attacks, no ghosts waiting for him down darkened halls, no one waiting in the darkness with a wet blade. The sky was glassy, cold with sharp star points. It was completely different. And there was breathing room, there were a few days of separation between him and the last really bad encounter with the ghosts. The power outage had fizzled away into the normality of the electrical lights, the candles and the braziers, the Hyuga main house was lit up like a Christmas tree all around him. His delirious vision of Orochimaru, the rustle and grip of coils, the hissed threats, it seemed like it belonged somewhere else.

And had happened to some other person. He no longer felt the subconscious slither of snakes under his skin. Orochimaru blithered on about the root chakra, it's coiled snake, the sexuality of it and the brutality, but sleeping with Hinata had not awakened anything venomous and repulsive in him. He had not turned into a fanged rapist himself, so it was actually starting to look like Orochimaru had been entirely full of shit. What a surprise. And the last panic attack had climaxed in a sincere effort to shatter Neji's spine over a reinforced steel railing- not such a bad thing considering- and that had been some days ago. Since then- peace and quiet with Hinata. Things could be worse.

He'd even told these two busybodies how he felt about her. Simple- he liked her. She liked him. They'd taken it with stupid disbelief and a lot of nosy questions, but the words were said. He was not ashamed, anyway. It was normal to have a girlfriend. Or whatever. He may have to ask her formally before the title was official. He didn't know how people went about becoming properly linked as boyfriends and girlfriends. But he'd figure it out. It couldn't be that difficult. And he did like her. Naruto and Sakura could look at him with that dumb look of consternation all they wanted, it didn't change anything.

And if they were waiting for him to put his hand over his heart and recite love poetry before they believed him, they shouldn't hold their goddamn breath. He liked her- there was really no need to dress it up in a lot of romantic bullshit. He'd put up with some of the bullshit maybe- later, alone with Hinata, a few drinks under his belt- see if he could please her and make up for being depressed or pissed off most of the time otherwise. Or both. But never mind. She liked him back. You didn't need to sing any stupid love songs about that.

And her warmth and her hand in his and her closeness calmed him down. Maybe if Naruto and Sakura weren't right across from them, he might have leaned his head on her shoulder, kissed the warm, delicate skin at the nape of her neck, the hollow of her throat. He would have taken all the wooden hairpins out of her hair- slowly, undressed her with the same methodical slowness. He would have liked to see the ghosts try to get at him after that, after she'd gotten her soft hands under his clothes and he'd taken her to bed. Or maybe he could have just pulled her into his lap and done it right there. He worried a lot less about hurting her if she controlled the motion, and if she straddled him that way. The guards wouldn't bother them, they could be alone and happy and-

-really, the key problem here was that they were not alone.

And Hinata was crawling with tension beside him, her hand was shaking in his. He eyed Naruto and wondered if he dared to kiss her, put his arm around her, even touch her. Anything beyond that simple chaste handholding- and to think that he should feel ashamed, that he should feel that he couldn't- it pissed him off. These two. Inhibiting him. It annoyed him enough that he decided he didn't care and put his arm around her anyway.

Which drew a whole new annoying reaction from Sakura. A heavier look of slow disbelief, like she was watching something that just didn't make sense to her. And Naruto, his obtuseness, his bluntness, his wide-eyed dumb look- Sasuke wasn't sure which one of them he was more annoyed by, they were really outdoing one another.

He said he was staying and they still looked at him that way!

That way. That watchful, vigilant eye they both kept on his hands and his body language. The way they talked and tried to act normal, but it never quite reached their eyes. He could tell they'd smile and hug him- but they wouldn't turn their back on him. They wouldn't let their guard down. They acted like he was an enemy, like he was an opponent, like he'd tried to kill them-

-which he had. So never mind. But it pissed him off. He came back and he met with them, he surrendered and now here he was. This was what they wanted. It should be enough for them!

He didn't know how to give them anything else. He didn't know how to fix this- he was so tired, the admissions and the surrender had burnt up too much of his patience. He put his other arm around Hinata, embraced her. The flower scent in her hair tickled him. Her warmth soaked into him. Her heartbeat and her breathing, her anxiety quivered through his hands, she was so undeniably alive.

They were watching and he could tell he was pushing it- he didn't care. Hinata was tense- embarrassed. But as he folded his arms around her and pulled her against him gently- she moved slowly, she melted against him. He smelled the faint traces of peony crushed into the folds of silk, the last smudged remains of cosmetics, the familiar heat of her flesh. She let him cuddle her, comfort them both. It could make his head spin, this feeling and this closeness.

But at this moment- this was a territorial gesture. Orochimaru had taught him all about those. Mine. He might as well have said that to the two of them. Mine and not yours.

They were her friends but there was a curling smoke signal, a little hint, a forgotten whisper of intuition in the back of his mind. A little tremor of sound magic suspicion, the way she said his name. Naruto-kun. She said Sakura-san, but no Naruto-san to go with it. It was significant, and under that significance was a deep well, something hidden in her tone. Sasuke was damned if he was her friend. Just her friend. No- you didn't say the name of a friend that way. He may have been a filthy reject from a destroyed clan, but he was not a fool, thank you.

So he let himself do it.

And when he looked over at Naruto to see how he took this, Naruto was frowning in that fixed way he had whenever Sasuke was telling him to get lost and just let him destroy himself in peace. That look of intense concentrated determination. Sakura was frowning too, her physician's look of worry and concern and disapproval. And under that, the wordless, shocked look of sadness that he'd seen, many times before. Something he never wanted to interpret too deeply, it was too hard on his conscience and the reactive powderkeg of his guilt. So forget it, he thought. Look away.

Hinata at least seemed too exhausted to do much but lean against him. Having made his point, he took a moment to comfort her properly. "It's all right." he breathed against her ear, far too softly for the two nosy onlookers to hear.

"...I'm okay. I'm.." she whispered, and then she wanted out of his arms, she wanted to sit up and try to smile and pretend that things were sort of all right.

Which maybe they were- for her. She wasn't the one under a microscope being poked at by inquisitors. She was guiltless. But he let her go, none of this was her fault. If she had to see his ugly secrets, then the least he could do was shield her from the worst of his temper, make sure none of it got splattered onto her. He perfunctorily pined back a bit of her elaborate hair that he'd knocked out of place. He made sure she was all right more or less, then simply took her hand again and faced his teammates.

He had actually meant it, that he'd rejoin them.

...sort of. It seemed like an idea. But it was far enough away, behind the complicated hundles of the ANBU and Hokage's office, arraignment and interrogation. If he got through all that, then he assumed he'd rejoin them. There was really nowhere else to go. The vague fantasy he'd had of being of such noble blood that he could be a bakufu minister for the government, or even a samurai retainer of the shogunate-

-had been shattered, Orochimaru had taken him out of the countryside prefectures he'd grown up in, he'd gone to the capital and seen the Tokugawa samurai, the wealthy merchants, the Left Minister to the shogun in his silk robes, idly throwing around money to amuse his concubine. And the money that the minister flashed boredly was more than Sasuke or his father, or even Hinata's father could make inside of a year.

Be a servant in heaven or a ruler in hell. Crawl underground with Orochimaru, into the darkness and pervasive creeping mist of antiseptic and mold that never really went away. Under that, the bleary smudge of death and blood and terror. It was the wrong kind of question to ask, the wrong way to imagine power. This idiot here had been right. This idiot didn't need to know that yet, maybe only Kakashi could tell Sasuke that he'd been warned- and Sasuke would take it. But not from Naruto.

Not now, anyway. Maybe after the ANBU. Even an ANBU interrogation chamber was starting to look good in comparison to Orochimaru's snakeholes. After that, the village of his birth was like a damned paradise.

Annoying people or none. He'd thought maybe he could become a ronin, fake his documentation of birth and sidle in to the employ of a fat lazy merchant, a strange country too far out of the way for Orochimaru to bother, maybe set up a little martial arts school there to teach sword forms and self defense to even lazier children. Something like that. But he hadn't wanted that. He hadn't wanted to start over somewhere new, or to stop being a ninja.

Or to leave them, it seemed.

Which had always made these confused little run-ins with Naruto so excruciating. It would have been nothing to him- nothing more than the energy it took to spit in Naruto's face, shake him off, maybe hurt him enough to make him have to retreat- if it really had been a matter of being through with them. Of never wanting anything to do with them again. It would have been no problem. And maybe Naruto would have seen the absolutely certainty in his face, his manner. He wouldn't have contradicted himself here and there- unable to pull the trigger, stamp Naruto's life out- almost like he was hoping against hope that Naruto would follow. Naruto would have realized that Sasuke was beyond saving, Sasuke was a lost cause. Naruto would have just let Sasuke commit slow suicide the way he'd wanted. But no- Naruto had to save him. And he defeated himself, he had to give Naruto these little reasons. Always- even when he stood above them on high. Even when he was so close to fully deluded and under Orochimaru's sway. Even then. And now, despite himself, here he was. Because of himself, his indecision. Some grand cosmic joke of his indecision and Naruto's dogged, stubborn determination. Here he was- saved.

Pissed off. Because they would want some kind of explanation of his contradictory behavior. And he was out of patience for admission and humility. He was here, it should be enough. But everything that had worked before was made for the dynamited cliffside, the deep footwaters of the Valley. It was all about denying and pushing away, so when it came time to come close again he had no way to do it gracefully. No matter what he'd have to admit fault. And it would be too much for even him to sit on Hinata's tatami mats, scare her more and cuss out his friends, act like he didn't want to know them, like he didn't give a damn about them, like being cruel was some sacred way to prove how much better he was than them-

-like Orochimaru, telling him he had to hold down the little girl while she was tortured, telling him he had to do it to prove he was strong and cold-hearted. And if he said he wouldn't do it then that was saying he was weak, and was saying Itachi was right, and was saying that when the girl died he might be taking her place. He'd been in the grips of the snake for too long and learned nothing but survival. And now that the snake was gone, going back was a struggle. There was going back in body, but going back in mind was the worst. He'd tried having bonds and friends, and run away from it before he could master it.

So now it was late in the game. There was no way to do this and look superior.

He didn't like the idea of Hinata being there, but it was unavoidable. It was her house. She'd even said that to him, that little inflection of possessiveness- my house. My family. My friends- but she'd never actually said that one, had she? Because she though they were his friends. She had to see now, she had to know what was going on before she consented to do anything with him.

Even hold his hand.

He wondered where they were going to go with this. Sakura looked like she had a question or twenty about his relationship with Hinata- and his relationship with Hinata wasn't exactly any of her goddamn business, was it? No. Glaring wouldn't help shake her off. Questions would just embarrass Hinata, who didn't seem like she reveled in the idea of airing her private love life to them either. But Sakura got another idea- she sent him and Naruto off on some flimsy excuse, and he had no patience, he didn't want a full-on standoff in front of Hinata. He somehow hoped that he could get out of Hinata finding out about that scene on the exit road, and that moment when he'd just taken a disinterested killshot at Sakura's neck. Maybe if he was really lucky-

-but never mind, his luck was horrible. It always had been. He grabbed Naruto's arm and yanked him out of the room. Naruto snickered- but there was an edge to it. Everyone was on edge.

Getting out of that room was nice. Hinata would be fine with Sakura.

Out into the broken darkness of the hallway, the light of the main foyer of the wing ahead of them far to the right. Naruto pulled his arm away. And he didn't say anything. His face was lost in the darkness, all Sasuke could see was the faint halo that light made of his spiked head in silhouette. Naruto wasn't really talking the way he usually did. But what was usual for him now? This could be a completely new person. Sasuke was on his guard himself, gunshy of all these hidden knife edges in everyone's voice. He followed- Naruto in front of him, Naruto's hands were he could see them, no turning his back on Naruto. They passed the guards, new ones. A smaller one that was too goofy to be a threat, a tall redhead with tattooed hands. The redhead looked harder, and Sasuke had seen this guard in particular give him that fixed, hard look before. But the guard said nothing. Sasuke lead Naruto away, he knew his way around this house well enough to find the kitchen by now.

But the Hyuga were around, they were going to bed but they weren't there yet. They weren't staying up all night- small fucking mercies- but they were in the halls, they were sitting in warm lit rooms walled with paper that bled out the light and their voices, the crossdraft of their white glances.

And they couldn't seem to not find him interesting, he stuck out just by virtue of not looking the way they did. His darker hair, his wild spikes, his jagged red-black Uchiha blood. And if Naruto didn't look anything like them either, well, maybe it was less personal to them. The old woman had said that the Hyuga clan's hostility to his Uchiha bloodline was only coming from a handful of troublemakers. He had taken guarded comfort from that then- it was true that most of the white-eyed stares were only mildly curious, as if he were an exotic zoo animal, a circus freak- something. But it was annoying. And it was unnecessary, if most of these Hyuga had indeed once had close ties with Uchiha clan like the old woman said. They should not be staring as if they'd never seen a Uchiha before.

The old woman was a bitch and he still didn't like her at all, half the time. But she was not a liar. He'd give her that much. The Hyuga had sat around and smoked in silent pools of candlelight, as if they really were carrying on an extended collective conversation with their ancestors. Now they lazed about the same way, but their voices were lighter, there was something else in how they looked at him now. Or maybe he'd been too angry and threatened to see it before. Maybe their mood was different. The Hyuga were coming out of the woodwork now. Saying things.

Trying to get his attention. Oh, it's the Uchiha boy. That's the only one left. And look at him, he looks just like his mother. Talking idly amongst themselves- and it was annoying, because people should just mind their own business and leave him alone. But no one was spitting on his bloodline, not that he saw. Their voices were conjuring the lost three hundred.

Three hundred and sixty-two. Maybe these gossipy Hyuga even knew the exact number. The back of his neck prickled with heat, but he didn't glare at them. It seemed like it might blot out their voices, the life it gave to their memories. To think that he wasn't the only one who remembered his destroyed clan, and that the faces blurring in his memory, time steadily driving space between him and them, it didn't mean that they would cease to exist when his own memories blurred fully. When he could no longer recall their faces at all. The memories weren't only his- others remembered. The clan had actually existed.

Though sometimes it felt otherwise. He was only one person. And he was young and inexperienced, he had his skills and talent that were still a faint whisper in the crushing howl of a hostile and overwhelmingly complicated world. Hatred had only carried him so far. He was too startled to speak when the Hyuga man stopped him. A complete stranger, the name he gave meant nothing to Sasuke. He was middle-aged, maybe the same age as his uncles would have been. He said "Hey son- come here."

And "Your mother was a good friend of my sister." And "Your grandfather was a tough old bastard, but I respected him. He wouldn't let me and your uncle get away with anything, couldn't lie to him, he'd know. Couldn't say anything earlier, but the order of silence is over and Hiashi-sama's up in the sky now. Figure that he and your dad just couldn't let the other win, you know? Hasn't been the same here without you Uchiha around. Good thing you're back, we were thinking that we'd lost all of you."

We being the Hyuga clan, the family, from the way this Hyuga said it.

But this was too bizarre, Sasuke could only mutter some fragment of his own manners, some proper thing to say when approached this way by another noble clan member. It was too disorienting, he'd gone too long being surrounded by climbers and murderers and people who would go over him with magnifying glasses for any hint of weakness. He couldn't speak- he just said something by route and kept walking.

He even forgot that Naruto was beside him for a moment. And that was fatal, Naruto saw how uncertain he was. He remembered too late- caught the mirrored uncertainty on Naruto's face. And then Naruto smirked, and punched him in the arm. Hey bastard, you're just losing your cool all over the place today! But behind that, sound magic's divination, there was a nervous vein of anxiety in Naruto's taunt. Because what if Naruto made these usual insults and Sasuke actually fell apart? What if he broke down? The threat was there, he felt it. Naruto could feel it too. Vulnerability was terrifying, you had to douse it with insults and teasing and just try to exorcize it away before it could come to light and humiliate you both.

"Shut up." Sasuke mumbled and hunched up his shoulders. He studiously glared at the polished wood floor as it unwound a handful of paces ahead of them, and as lamps and overhead lights bounced their liquid glare off it's glossy surface. The veins of the wood stretched in endless twisted cables.

He would have thought that Naruto would take this as a warning, he'd back off and maybe they could just walk in silence? No such luck, and Sasuke told himself sourly that he should have known better. Naruto couldn't shut his mouth to save his life. And if that was how they'd become friends in the first place, Naruto's terminal inability to shut up and leave him alone and just not care, be put off or driven away by even the most venomous insult...

...never mind that, Naruto was annoying him.

"Yeah, like that's real hard to do.." Naruto said idly, and only the surface of his voice was casual. "Thought you weren't running away anymore."

It wasn't worth responding to.

"Said you were staying. So why're you running away still?"

It would also be nice if he could pretend he had no idea what Naruto was talking about. Or if he could lie convincingly about it.

"It doesn't mean anything." he muttered in Naruto's general direction. Meeting Naruto's eyes was an option, but he declined. He studied the world around him instead. Wood, polish, paper, shine. Cold factual reality. "There's nothing else for me to do. That's all."

Whether it was a lie or not was suddenly less important than whether Naruto could tell. He got a half-snort out of Naruto. Under it- an uneasy scrawl of silence, uncharacteristic and probably something he should have taken as a warning.

"Bullshit." Naruto finally concluded, but with a notable lack of conviction. Sasuke relaxed his shoulders smugly, he had the advantage now. Naruto could be pressed on the strength of his will, then. Sasuke could imply that wasn't completely committed, prick Naruto's pride over his determination. He should have realized that it wouldn't exactly be difficult to emotionally manipulate someone who pinned his heart to his sleeve, someone like Naruto. He was too open, too easy with his feelings, they were right there and exposed to any needles you wanted to shove into his tender points. It was disgusting how easily Sasuke could do it. He could derail this entire little talk. He could decide whether he wanted it to even continue, much less if he wanted to bother to answer.

And his silence spoke for itself.

"That's bullshit. You won't admit it."

Naruto, trying to goad him into replying.

"You're still trying to run away!"

With a noted lack of restraint and control of his voice and how loud it was, how the ringing sound of it bounced off all the bare polished wood. Sasuke winced, hidden sufficiently in the shifting points of light to actually changed expression.

And to lose patience with this whole endless goddamn argument. "That's right. I'm running away right now." he said icily. With what felt like lifetime's worth of stored, venomous sarcasm.

"Then stop saying you don't want to be here." But this idiot couldn't keep the waver out of his tone. He really wasn't sure. He probably did all of this just on the steam of his thoughtless stupid impulses. He just had the demonic burn behind it to power them, to never have to acknowledge reality, to never have to stop and think. And anyway, Sasuke had not said that.

And he informed Naruto of this point, as succinctly as possible. Every word he said felt like part of an admission. He'd already made that admission. Or maybe there were layers and levels of other admissions he'd have to make, negotiating his way back to friendship with this person who was probably, frankly, now a stranger. Assuming he even wanted that.

And there were Hyuga in these halls, he could feel them breathing behind the layers of paper, already settled down in their areas of the house for the evening. The line of candles gave way to closed doors and their warm white glow of light thorough paneled paper. The subliminal suggestion of voices under doors and through walls. Ghosts, he thought. The ghosts used the sounds of night and rest, the breath of sleepers and the limited alertness of those still awake to give form and volume to their soundless, voiceless imprint. Their eyelessness- and yet he could feel their collective gaze on the back of his neck. Like their hands- which was both not a hand, not a physical anything, and something that was beyond the physical world and it's limitations, something that could go through walls and walk through even the most airtight guard he tried to construct. And he would not shiver, there was now too much light to conceal it.

Naruto was still arguing. "You did too say it. You.. whatchamacallit.. implied it."

It was so beneath his dignity, he decided, to score little verbal flesh wounds on Naruto for not knowing the word, not knowing it instantly, perfectly, using it with the same perfection. Naruto wasn't someone who needed to be perfect or even tried to be. That was pointless. Stop this. It was a thought that he paused upon, turned over, considered. Repeated. In his head, soundlessly, as Naruto tried to talk to him and he deflected Naruto like it was a fight after all. Stop this. Stop fighting him.

But never mind that. No more admissions. Get to the point.

"I didn't," he said with pointed over-precision, "ask you to do this. This is your fault. You got what you wanted. Stop bothering me."

Stop this. But if he could stop, he wouldn't have gone even that far. There was a part of him that indulged in this pointlessness, there was a part of him that watched and wanted to call an end to it, and the usual part of his nature won. Maybe it was Naruto's fault for even trying to talk, fix this, Sasuke had never claimed that it could be done. There was an empty space where there would have been screaming and stupid taunts and the usual scuffle, whether it got really serious or not. There was just not anything to put it it's place. This was not Sasuke's idea, this was not Sasuke's doing, and this was not his fault. Stop this- but this idiot just didn't fucking quit.

The idiot had the audacity to unroll his stupid mocking laugh instead of answer with actual proper words- or just shut his mouth, which is what Sasuke would have liked. "Haha." Naruto jeered.

And Sasuke blocked with his own bored silence. Not even worth a response. Not worth taking that bait.

"It's funny."

"Don't even bother."

"What're you-"

"Don't."

Silence.

The handful of seconds, it was all you could hope for. Some subtle change of breath from Naruto that might have been a sigh, maybe if it had come from a person with an ounce of reflection or impulse control. Someone who actually thought without gearing up his mouth before he could even begin. Someone who Sasuke couldn't so easily destroy in his own mind, character assassinate, render wrong and useless and out of line, besides. Naruto's tone turning softer, no struggle or taunts laced through it now. Dangerous.

"I don't get it."

"Of course you don't."

"I don't get why you're doing this."

Dangerous waters. The first thing that sprung to mind was you never got it when I almost killed you either.

And maybe I should have.

And next time I will- it was time to end this, right now. He'd let it go on long enough. Naruto was fighting his silence again, stuffing it full of words like he could construct a conversation between the two of them, do it single-handedly, he was babbling something about how Sasuke needed to cut it out, or else Sakura-chan would kick his ass.

"Sakura can't do anything. You can't do anything. Neither of you can force me." Sasuke spoke swiftly and icily, and when he heard Naruto trying to shoot back some useless answer, he cut Naruto off completely- "Shut up. Shut up. Stop talking. Leave me alone."

It was not a calculus of who was right, he maybe didn't have to fear being wrong. He didn't have to accept anything, maybe, any sense of admission. His surrender could be conditional. It wasn't about who was right, it was about who could defeat the other. Who could shut down the conversation. Who could control it. End it. Hammer it down to nothing.

And who could collapse those last few seconds where they were alone, to make sure nothing could be said. The kitchen lay in a more central part of the house, one overrun with servants and retainers and assorted Hyuga at all hours. Sasuke had his hand on the double doors that sealed it off and gave Naruto the space and privacy to even try, he was opening it before Naruto could even recover from that. He spared one cold look - not at Naruto so much as the direction or the space that Naruto stood in.

"I told you it couldn't work." he said.

He cast the doors open. Sounds of movement and voices and activity, two or three Hyuga passing through on their way to another part of the house. He was striding off towards the kitchen and the light and activity there before Naruto could even shut his gawping mouth.

--

It wasn't something Hinata said- out loud- right away. You don't really feel that way. Usually she was polite and she would nod, smile. Sakura was her friend. It was hard for her to have friends, she still thought she was slow and clumsy with it. She never was as quick and vivacious, ever, she never was as bright and optimistic. She never had their sheer force of presence. But they made her feel warm, like she was able to stand within their corona. They never made her feel that she didn't belong there, or they didn't want to see her. Or even that they were just tolerating her out of pity, which she still couldn't quite fully believe. But maybe they actually found something interesting about her. They did give her strength. They seemed to want to be her friends even though she didn't understand it.

She wiped her eyes, she knew she couldn't just be a soggy mess of tears and ineffectual nothingness. She could still feel the last traces of heat from Sasuke's arm as he'd held her- casually, like it was just normal for her to have a... well. A boyfriend. He did it like it was nothing.

It wasn't. Sakura knew it too. Sakura knew Hinata had never had one before. She'd told Sakura about it, and Sakura had helped her, and given her advice, and held her hands and told her that she was sweet and that a boy would be lucky to have her. Hinata had smiled, and not had to force herself- much. She still couldn't have faith, not enough. Neji was the kind of person who was worth something, and who would be naturally wanted by so many others. And Sasuke was that sort of person too. She was not. Maybe she still was too dark and depressed, even Naruto had once thought she was... Well. A weirdo. Shy and weird. Like there was something wrong with her. Maybe she should have told Neji that too, that she really had no right to cast aspersions on Sasuke, to act like there was something so wrong with him. Not while there was so many things wrong with her.

Sasuke had spoken to her softly, but she'd felt the tension in his body when he pulled her against him. She'd seen the tight stiffness around his eyes, just the tiniest little knotting of muscle. But he wasn't okay, not really. Maybe nothing was okay.

"Hinata-chan, is everything okay?" Sakura said in fact, leaning down to kneel beside Hinata. She'd made a gentle joke about how she'd hug Hinata- but there were all the hairpins in Hinata's hair, and she might knock some of them out. Sakura was like that- warm, she was nice to you and you believed it. But Hinata couldn't smile this time. She nodded...

...but it wasn't really true. She looked down at her hands, remembering the ice water and Neji's cold skin under her fingers. It wasn't enough to just nod, so she managed to say: "I...think so." But she didn't sound like she even believed herself, so Sakura's worried frown diffracted into cleanly outlined separations of concern and suspicion and worry; and the same hard authority she never seemed to really lose, something that was more of a blunt instrument than Sasuke's precise, focused glare. But Hinata understood, she wasn't being convincing. She couldn't- and maybe she shouldn't act like things were simple and settled. Sakura shifted her balance to lean in more and her bare skin slid on the blue silk that covered Hinata's shoulders. She sat down properly, folding her legs under herself, and then leaned in to whisper.

"Are you sure? Hinata-chan, what's going on? Where did he come from- and what happened?"

Everyone was hugging her like she was too weak to stand on her own. But it was like with Neji, she couldn't feel insulted or condescended to, she just wanted the warmth and the comfort too much. It was a bit easier, as long as Sakura hugged her and she could whisper and not really have to say things aloud, not the way she would have with Naruto and Sasuke both in the room with them.

Sakura asking her questions like this, both her and Naruto's attention, the fact that they even did take her seriously enough to ask made it easier to distill her cloudy thoughts down. Sakura would know- she'd wanted so much to tell Sakura, to just pick up the phone and do this. She whispered "...It's true. What we told you and Naruto-kun is true. I found him in the south woods. I wanted to bring him to you but I was worried about the ANBU, and I didn't want them to take him away from you-"

"..take him away..?" Sakura repeated, hushed in the warm circles of lantern light they sat between.

Hinata pressed ahead anxiously "The ANBU might torture and execute him because he's a missing-nin, and I didn't want you and Naruto-kun to lose him. I wanted to call you but there was the ice storm, and-"

Her voice was rising like the note of a boiling teakettle, her anxiety was getting out of control. Sakura hushed her and tightened her arms. She might have been hushing a small child. "That's okay, I understand, I think Tsunade-sama can help, don't worry about that.. okay? Don't worry, but what about...?"

"I don't know.." Hinata blurted, she knew immediately what Sakura meant even without hearing the question, the pause and intake of breath that marked it was enough. "I don't know what happened, I didn't even know him."

She hadn't. He was in her academy class. She knew his name, but it was the name of a stranger. He was a distant figure of excellence, someone so far out of her daily life or what she could hope to be herself that she didn't even bother to notice. Her attention was worthless, after all. She didn't join the other girls cheering him during taijutsu drills and shuriken practice. Someone like him would never even exist in the same place as her, never breathe the same air, and this was so clear to her that she didn't even think twice about it. His beautiful face and body, his amazing talent, his spotless record of excellence and his absolute ability to master anything- swiftly and confidently- she might as well have been watching a movie star or a celebrity on television for all that he would have to do with her. This was so clear, not worth noticing. "I didn't know anything about him." she whispered. "I just knew that you and Naruto-kun wanted him back. And that you missed him so much. I just wanted..." To give him back to them. To finally have something to give them for their friendship. She hadn't thought twice about that either. She'd just rushed ahead and done it.

Breath eased out of Sakura, her arms tightened slowly. Her starched white hospital coat smelled of detergent and recent sweat, of the strawberry shampoo she used, and the harsh soap the surgeons cleaned their hands and equipment with. She was probably thinking about something that was private to her and her team, some part of it that wasn't for Hinata to hear. Hinata was being seized as much as she was being cuddled, Sakura and Naruto were so caught up in this, it was everything to them. "I'm sorry I interfered." she whispered finally. Sakura shook her head firmly, her hair slippery and making a thin rustling against the silk collar of Hinata's outer kimono. The metal of her Konoha leaf struck the enamel end of a hairpin.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm just glad he's back." Sakura's whisper had turned hollow, like she couldn't really pretend herself any longer, not even for Hinata's sake. "At least he's back. He was off with that Orochimaru, he could have gotten killed out there. And he's not a bad person, he's just a kid like you and me, Hinata-chan. He grew up here just like us. And he went to a place like that- can you even imagine? He's so skilled but I just couldn't bring myself to... I couldn't rely on that, it doesn't matter, someone was going to kill him out there, I was so..." She shifted, Hianta couldn't see her expression, just feel the quiver of air in her throat. "We thought... We weren't sure he was even alive."

And Sakura meant that this was the most important thing, that he was alive, that he'd survived, that he was back.

That this made everything okay.

Hinata knew she should keep quiet but this was her friend, she couldn't lie to Sakura.

"It's okay no matter what's going on... as long as you're okay too, Hinata-chan. We can't even thank you enough for.."

"..but that's not really how you feel." Hinata said heavily. "Is it, Sakura-san?"

--

This complete idiot.

Naruto was jabbering away at the kitchen staff-

"Hey, can we have some ramen too? Like maybe dessert ramen? What do you mean there's no such thing, what kind of a chef are you? Haha! And no I don't think that bastard over there should have anything to drink either, he's grouchy enough already! Sakura-chan's fine and the mission was okay, and Hinata-chan's okay too except for the crying part- oh, and I wanted to tell you, I got a letter in the mail from ero-sennin's publisher, they want me to take over writing his series but Sakura-chan said that I was too much of a perv already- haha! What? Haha, that's right! He's always like this! And he totally won't admit that he's glad to see me, can you believe that? Even Hinata-chan knows he's lying because he's so bad at it! He's even trying to act like he's too cool right now! Haha! Isn't that right, bastard? Anyone ever tell you that you might have, like a drinking problem to go along with your face problem- I mean your grumpy face problem, but that's funny, you do have a dumb frown on your face! Haha! Oh, and Kimiko-chaaaaan, did I tell you about the bow? He used to totally dress like a gay hooker and he wore this bow on his ass, and Sakura-chan and I knew it was just because he was being dressed by the gayest man from Konoha- not that there's anything wrong with that! Haha! But he totally was PMSing the last time we saw him too and I said-"

-unbelievable. The damn ninja girls were there, yammering back at Naruto and laughing and encouraging him! The old woman was just standing there calmly, cutting up vegetables like Naruto wasn't being an intolerable horse's ass, doing absolutely nothing. Sasuke leaned against the wall by the door and atomized the entire room and all present with one of his best glares.

No one cared. Naruto kept looking over at him like he was supposed to find this shit funny, the old woman kept giving him that look, that slow patient look of bemusement, and goddamn he was going to have to pound the crap out of something, and very soon. He clenched his fists and his bruised knuckles wrenched. He grimaced. He let his hands unflex again. But some idiot needed a pounding. One kick in the face wasn't going to be enough.

That ninja girl- and he could never tell them apart- looked over at him with bright, irritating amusement. The other one giggled behind her dish-gloved hand. He stared back coldly.

Unfortunately, he could tell the old woman would have a completely unreasonable attitude about him just seizing Naruto by that blond mess on his head, and then smashing him into the knife rack by his face.

And once they'd gotten the damn food and Sasuke had dragged the loud idiot away from his goddamned audience, he had to help carry things and not just take one of those satisfyingly heavy bamboo trays, wait until Naruto looked down and exposed the top vertebrate of his neck, and then just aimed and-

No. No shattering Naruto's neck and driving bone fragments into his spine. This would upset Hinata. Though the detailed fantasy that Sasuke assembled in his head was not nearly enough to make up for that.

So he walked in terse, icy silence instead. He pulled aside shoji dividers with pointed force. The heavy oak double doors that subdivided the wings accidentally got slammed in Naruto's face.

And Naruto stopped laughing, the undertone that hummed under his silence got louder. Progressively. They passed back through the halls of sleepy Hyuga again. The wells of light that seeped through the closed paper walls were fewer now. Naruto said nothing, and Sasuke found new ways and muscle groups and little flexions of worry to tense and seize up together. The stupid jokes were bad, the words at all were bad, he didn't want discussion. He didn't want silence. Nothing could make this feel right. Not even kicking Naruto's legs out from under him and shoving him down the stairs, throwing him through a few paper walls, none of the usual calisthenics. He flashed upon the memory- unpleasantly- of limping up the hospital stairs to the roof, trailing Naruto, jagged with adrenaline and fury, minutes away from using a lethal technique, in all seriousness. There were the usual handful of excuses about how he hadn't been thinking correctly, he had been angry, the curse seal- But no. There just was no solution.

"Bastard, nobody's angry with you but you."

A sneaky undertone after they'd passed the guards in silence, opened the paper walls to Hinata's wing and Sasuke had shifted the trays in his arms to reach for her door. He'd opened a seam of light between the doorjamb and the wall. There was no time left to respond. Naruto had stepped back, having whispered roughly against his ear.

--

An intake of breath from Sakura.

When someone hugged you like that, you couldn't see their face but you could feel little twinges and reactions that you might have missed, not even a trained ninja could catch every flicker of movement another person made. So much of it was involuntary- or hidden, and Sakura covered her distress well. There was a brief exchange of uncomfortable questions, Sakura edging around the subject- what do you mean? and Hinata trying to say what she meant and still be polite and ignore all these things that shouldn't even be mentioned. Sakura understood and there was finally the half-beat of silence. Caught in her arms and safe, Hinata looked down at the acanthus leaf scrollwork on her topmost kimono, and the way the coils of long bobbed leaves bent and bunched in the folds of silk that fell around her and out onto the tatami mats. "It is okay." Sakura said. "I mean it. I just wanted him back. It doesn't matter."

But she'd had her crush.

"I did." she said distantly. "But when he was gone I just wanted him back, even if he wasn't with me. When you lose someone that way..." another firm shake of her head, she was recovering her steadiness. "It doesn't matter so much how you get to have him with you, or why he's with you, or if he's your friend or your boyfriend. I used to... But when he was gone I stopped caring because the important thing was just getting him back."

"But don't you love him..."

"We both do."

"No, I mean..."

"I did but he wasn't around." There was a catch in Sakura's clear voice now. "I did- but you can't be in love with someone all by yourself. And while he was gone, I fell in love with someone else."

"Is it like that..." Hinata whispered. "When you fall in love and it's real, you don't have your crushes anymore?"

Sakura sighed. "Hinata-chan... I don't know. I just want you to know that it doesn't change anything. My marriage doesn't mean I've given up on him, it means I'm more committed than ever. We both love him. And I don't care how I get him back, or how that love works. We just love him and you shouldn't even worry... Hinata-chan, you should feel proud of yourself." A final squeeze around her ribs. "You've had a hard week anyway. Go a bit easier on yourself, okay? " And Sakura drifted into the subject of Hinata's father, that she was sorry that he'd deteriorated so fast, that she and the Fifth had been sure he was making good progress and his heart condition was stabilizing. "You shouldn't even worry about me and Sasuke, you need to take care of yourself! I can tell he hasn't been sleeping, but you shouldn't be pushing yourself either-" Sakura scolded, her tone light with affection. "Naruto and I know what to do. And Kakashi-sensei's coming too. It's going to be fine."

The situation, the responsibility, the burden of secrecy was being passed into other hands, people far more capable than Hinata herself. Sakura had hugged her carefully, but it didn't matter, her hairpins were still falling out. Together they pulled them out completely. Sakura straightened the desk chair, some accounting books and scrolls that had somehow gotten knocked from Hinata's desk and scattered. Hinata saw that the little roll of papers from her academy class was among them, but she just turned her head. She lined up the hairpins all ornament-up, pin down, and put them in her stained maple jewelry box, neatly over the small amount of bracelets and necklaces there. She had never worn a lot of pretty things, she'd never really thought of herself as pretty anyway. The jewelry box was jarred a bit from it's usual position, aligned with the top of her vanity. She hadn't noticed it when she'd come in, but there was a lot of disturbed paper and furniture in this corner of her room. There must have been a struggle after all.

But Sakura said it was all right and she could be cheerful about it, so it probably was.. "It wasn't a big fight. It was actually really small by their standards." When Hinata asked hesitantly if this was normal for them, Sakura nodded. "...they always are like that. Kakashi-sensei says it's how they express affection for one another.."

Sakura smiled, her eyes down and to herself, not for Hinata's benefit.

It reminded her of how it had been. She'd watched Naruto- and beside him was Sakura, pink and rosy and pretty, fresh-faced and so smart and brave. Beside Sakura, behind her, somehow aside from them was a third person, a dark-haired boy that Hinata never seemed to notice. She'd seen them, from afar. Another genin team passing her own boisterously in a crowded street.

Or the tense, noisy atmosphere of the chuunin exam and the genin gathered there. Sasuke had left the village far before she'd become friends with Naruto and Sakura. And even now, she'd never brought up her crush with Naruto. And probably Naruto didn't really know how to talk to her about it, he'd never mentioned it either. Even if Sakura knew and Hinata knew that she did, Sakura never mentioned it directly. She and Naruto stepped carefully around Hinata's feelings, and Hinata didn't know what to say, she had no idea how to even get into it, once they were married. She'd only become close to them after the wedding, after the last mission where she and both of them had gone over many day's travel to retrieve Sasuke. She'd stood at the place where Sakura had pointed to wet stone, the place where Sasuke had fought his brother. All of this had gone on and she'd never had to mention it.

So it wasn't something she mentioned now.

But Sakura's smile had evaporated. She watched Hinata out of the corner of her eye, assessing Hinata along diagnostic medical scales, trying to figure out if she was all right. Meaning, of course, if she was safe with Sasuke, if the relationship between them was all right, even if the relationship was there, if it wasn't some misunderstanding...

..but Hinata really had no idea what Sakura thought, and couldn't even hold her gaze. She looked down at her hands and the ragged lacy patterns calluses on her fingers made, like thick woven patches on soft lines, marring the whorls of her fingerprints now. Like the intense taijutsu training was changing who she was, and that change was happening.

"It's okay, Sakura-san." she said softly.

"Sakura-chan, Hinata-chan." Sakura's voice was gently teasing. This was something she'd said many times before, and Hinata somehow never felt comfortable enough to go along with it. "Come on, I'm not a stranger, right?"

Hinata nodded, but didn't look up. Her hair was unbound and twisted strangely from the hairpins, it fell heavily against her cheeks. "I think it's okay." she made herself continue. "I think... he likes me. And I like him. I think..."

"Then that's a good thing." Sakura said, still trying to warm Hinata up with her own cheerfulness. And now it seemed more genuine. She seemed convinced. Hinata glanced up, and Sakura was tilting her head slightly, she'd heard a snatch of voices from down the hall. They were very skilled ninjas, both of them, but neither of them were being stealthy.

At all. A moment later Hinata heard the high edge of Naruto's voice, the sound but no words. Sakura had heard them coming first.

Of course she had- she knew them much better than Hinata did.

--

"You know why they sent us for the food, it's so they can talk about us when we're not around. Geez, don't you know anything about girls? I thought you were all cool and popular."

Naruto had said that, before his little ambush. Nobody's mad at you, bastard. No- Sasuke didn't buy that one. That was bullshit. Naruto had timed it just right, just as Sasuke was pulling Hinata's bedroom door aside. Maybe just to get back at him for slamming the wooden doors in his face. Or maybe not. Sasuke spared one quick look at Naruto, weighing his manner. But no- this person was a stranger now. This was a Naruto he no longer had perfect control over.

If he ever had. But in the past he could tell when and where to push, when to back off. He had an idea of how much of Naruto's bluster was real, and where he was just being sloppy, where Naruto actually meant it- because there was an enervated piece of his heart in some stupid insult, some offhand remark. Something about the flash of his eyes just then-

-but no. Sasuke didn't know anymore. He concentrated on getting the trays down, the food sorted out. He coldly informed Naruto that he was too clumsy to help. Naruto sat down, talked to the girls. Or to Hinata, because Sakura immediately came over and started to impose. No, they couldn't have the rice and vegetables first, they had to have the miso. Sasuke had only been in charge of cooking for himself for close to twelve years now, but clearly that wasn't enough to avoid this patronizing attitude. He got the miso doled out and the bowls distributed. Then he sat back irritably and let Sakura do whatever the hell she felt had to be done, however she felt was necessary.

This wasn't a good idea. This- the four of them together, in the same room. If he couldn't talk to his teammates normally, then he certainly couldn't talk while being watched- worriedly- by Hinata. He sat beside her, and didn't say anything. Naruto and Sakura talked- to Hinata. Hinata talked back. It was clear that Hinata could feel his silence like it was a vicious insult to his teammates- worse, probably. But he had no idea of what to say. What did they even want from him anymore? He was someone else now too.

Someone they didn't even know anymore. So Sakura and Hinata talked about the ice storm, and Naruto insinuated his loud chatter. They talked about Naruto's missions and Sakura's patients, Hinata's students. Maybe they worked themselves into a simulation of comfort and relaxation. Maybe there were enough people talking and no one missed his voice.

Until Naruto misread the atmosphere and started up again.

"So how come you aren't talking?"

"Nothing to say."

"Yeah, but-"

"I'm here and I'm staying. Leave me alone."

"Then how come-"

"I'm tired. My shoulder hurts. Someone's bothering me. I'm not leaving, I've told you several times now. That's all you need to know. Shut up."

It seemed to be enough. These sharp, bitten off little lectures. But Hinata didn't like it, he felt her close up beside him, a subtle cringing in the way she looked down, pulled her elbows and knees a bit closer to her body. And- away from him. Like she wanted him to stop this. Now. Just..

...but if he could, he would have by now! It wasn't as if he was enjoying this.

All of this was just a blatant lesson in what he knew already. Naruto and his bonds.. well, Naruto had no idea how to fix this. Naruto never planned for anything, he just bashed his way ahead. And now even Naruto must see that this was a damaged half-dead relationship between strangers. Naruto and his bonds, his bond which was supposed to be the answer to everything. Well, that bond was like the translucent cables of artificial resuscitation. The tatters of a friendship that was maybe never that strong in the first place, maybe could have never survived, anyway, and it was only Naruto's foolhardy insistence that moved it's heart and lungs and animated it in the first place.

Sever that bond. And Sasuke had said- and more than once- it wasn't that I couldn't sever the bond with you. Maybe he should have never admitted it existed at all. Maybe he should have just let Naruto think he'd imagined the entire thing. The trees under a yellow late-year harvest moon. Scattered memories of training. And missions. And some stupid, weak, maudlin point in his life when he'd stood and fought to save Sakura, to preserve their team, when he'd thought this was what he wanted-

-and later when Naruto split his lip with a jarring right-hand punch. His piledriver of a fist, and his sloppy delivery, Sasuke saw it coming and didn't bother to block. He just took it. And he spat blood on Naruto's face. And then he told Naruto how it was, how it had all just been stupidity. Weakness. Self-delusion.

It was so easy to fall back into that.

There was enough space in the interplay of their conversation for him to watch Naruto, watch Naruto talk to Hinata and to Sakura, and the way his tone shifted, the way he was so relaxed with them. Naruto didn't notice and he didn't shove his blue laser-stare in the way. So Sasuke could watch freely, and wonder if there really was any way to take all that back. He knew that Naruto would probably barrel ahead, he may just bully the friendship back together the way he'd bullied everything else he wanted into existence. Maybe Sasuke would have to do nothing. And maybe the ANBU would help, they'd get him cleaned up and torn neatly out of Orochimaru's web of puppet strings. Maybe it was best to just stay quiet, not say anything, let Hinata talk to her friends. Watch. Say nothing. They were so damned happy together, it was disgusting. It was a spotlight on what was wrong with him.

And finally they wore themselves out.

It was early morning, by then. He'd had enough talking. He'd had enough being around talking. He'd gone out into Hinata's little stone garden to get some fresh air, to get some space in his head from the insistent jabs of Naruto's voice, Sakura's- that way that Hinata looked at Naruto that was gnawing at him, just a little.

And the Hyuga were always going on about suns and stars, that sort of thing. He looked up into the glassy sky, saw the haphazard spill of white pinpricks. Hundreds of thousands of white Hyuga eyes looking down, or the silent regiment of Uchiha ghosts, their eyes turned invisible and therefore lit in his peripheral vision, his mind's eye, with ultraviolet light. The wind was restless and picked at his hair, worried at the edge of his loose Hyuga clothes. Behind him was warmth and lanterns and their endless voices. But here there was some space to hear himself think. None of them seemed worried, their conversation didn't halt. He heard his name, a few offhand comments about how it was all right, he just needed some air. The sort of polite nothings he might have muttered himself, if he ever bothered with such pleasantries. No one bothered him. He wouldn't have objected to Hinata, but she was obligated to stay with her guests.

And when someone finally did step out onto the stone, the brush of their clothing, the sound of their footfall, the slight wisp of antiseptic on the air told him it was Sakura.

He frowned slightly from his perch on the stone bench in the far corner. He was turned away, the heat and light at his back. Sakura had once deferred to him- and he'd never much liked that, it seemed too cloying and obvious. Now she didn't seem to think he could take a damn piss without assistance, she was on him about the damn seal and now she was back- yes, exactly for that purpose.

"Sasuke-kun? Are you feeling all right?"

Sound magic spelt out the constellation of compassion, of concern, something other than sheer nosiness on her part. He liked her sureness and practicality better, but she needed to learn something about boundaries. His boundaries, anyway.

"You're not my doctor." he said, and didn't bother to turn and look at her. Let her figure it out. Neither of them seemed to understand what leave me alone meant. It was like they took it as a suggestion. Maybe leave me alone? If it's all right with you could you leave me alone? Honestly.

"I'm the only doctor present, and I need to-"

She needed to monitor his condition. She needed to poke at his seal wound again. She had to be a pain in the ass- it was her job. If he kept complaining he might get a lecture about the Hippocratic oath and her duties- he had no patience for it. "I know. Hurry up and do whatever you have to." he snapped. He just wanted some peace, this was a lot of people in a very confined space and for a long evening, he'd gotten very used to being damned-well alone. His Hawk team bitched and was insubordinate, but they left him the fuck alone, they knew to obey when he asked for it.

He heard her sigh of impatience. "I'm just trying to keep you from going into shock. That seal was dangerous. I can't believe you cut it out."

He really didn't have time for this commentary. He held still when she told him to. He let her pull his collar down his arm and resolved to not shiver in the cold night air. Goosebumps were unavoidable, out of his control. Her fingers pressed at the sides of the wound, clinical and precise. The afterburn of her chakra, the strange icy feel of it. "You had Hinata do it, didn't you?" she said. It wasn't an accusation, but it still wasn't any of her business.

"That's between her and I. Stay out of it."

He wondered how Sakura even knew that, it wasn't like it had been with the old woman, who'd known there was no one else around, that he'd been alone with Hinata at all. But maybe Hinata had told her, girls talked- to one another. Even he knew that. And how much did he know about girls? Not much.

"A ninja made these cuts." Sakura was saying. And then, just to rub it in, he thought "I can tell you didn't, no one could do this to themselves."

"Doesn't matter." he told her. "You're lucky I'm allowing this."

"...don't do me any favors.." she muttered under her breath. "Jerk."

And it was not the Sakura he'd known, not even the one who'd stopped staring at him wide-eyed, who'd suddenly balled up her fist and come at him. He'd seen that Sakura a few times, all right. But this one, her anger...

"We're trying to help you and you're sulking."

He was not. Fucking. Sulking. No.

"You married someone else." he snapped, he'd meant for it to be the stony, granite voice of his father, the iron hand of god slapping the whole conversation down, pulverizing it. But it was just his own usual anger. Less justification than he usually felt, too. He had admitted... somewhat.. that they were right. That he wanted this. But he couldn't stop. "You married Naruto. I told you, you can't stop me, and I told you- it's my life and not yours. No one can tell me what to do with it. You need to mind your own business. I don't owe you anything. You and Naruto decided this. I told you to stop and you didn't listen."

She had one hand on his other shoulder to help with her balance during the healing jutsus, and her fingernails dug through his jacket.

He'd said plenty of cruel things to her before. Mostly out of irritation more than any real dislike. She was too loud. Or she was doing that fakey kiss-up thing. She was asking him questions that he didn't have a good answer for, like why don't you stay, and anyway- it wouldn't be difficult to just snarl something cutting at her right now.

As if he hadn't just done that, anyway.

And now he was going to get a lecture for certain. He sighed, his shoulders deflating under her grasp.

But instead something even worse happened.

At first he thought she was just holding still and quietly planning out the next healing jutsu she was going to use. Or maybe she was talking herself out of saying anything, getting into an argument with him. It seemed like they'd both dodged and disengaged from arguments with one another all night. And that was fine with him, his patience was thin for her pushiness at the best of times. He needed time, he needed to know who the hell he was dealing with.

But she didn't say anything. And there was only the sound of distant voices down in the courtyard over the ceramic arm of the roof and it's gable. The warm murmur of voices from the room behind him. The slow trickle of water through the circulating pond at his feet. And then a warm splotch of wetness on his bared shoulder. Then another. Finally the telltale choking sniffle from behind him.

He hated making girls cry, it always made him feel like such an asshole. It was worse when he didn't really mean to hurt them, and that was most of the time. There was some sort of basic human warmth that other people had, and he never seemed to be able to master it. There were theories in those scrolls that Orochimaru had given him, anecdotes about children who were broken in childhood and then never grew back together properly. They carried their fractured psyche far into adulthood. And, anyway, he had to do something, because if Sakura went back in and Naruto saw that his wife was crying, then that would be a big fucking fight. And Sasuke wanted to go to bed, he was tired of people.

Countermeasure, he thought. Now. He could apologize, but no. He could tell her to stop sniveling- which would probably earn him a smack in the back of the head. He could then grab her hand, snarl at her to never do that again, and break her wrist. No- nothing good would come of that. He could tell her he hadn't meant it. But he had. He was staying, he wasn't leaving, but he'd told them both that already, and it didn't seem to matter.

"Hinata has tissues." he said after a moment. Given that Hinata had essentially been crying nonstop for almost a week now, of course. And it staunched the hemorrhage of the silence with something, dumb as it was. It sounded even more lame said aloud than it had in his head.

He heard her sniff and breath raggedly, but when she spoke, her voice was almost clear. "Don't tell me you're staying. I've heard that before."

He frowned, he didn't like this new insight of hers. "Then there isn't a problem." he said flatly. "I don't know what you want from me if that isn't enough."

Her hand unclenched, but never seemed to really relax. She just removed it from his shoulder, her blunt nails scoring the linen. "I guess we shouldn't expect you to act like you want to be with us at all." Her tone was as flat as his. She really had changed. Something about her had lost hope, begun to expect the worst.

It didn't feel good, hearing that he was hurting them. Knowing it vaguely was not as bad as direct confirmation. He sighed, and relented, "I'm not used to you anymore. And I don't know what Orochimaru has done. I've told you this. It will be different after the ANBU are through. Until then, bear it." And don't take it personally, he thought. But maybe it was personal, there was damage along the line of that bond, he wasn't going to disrespect her by lying to her about it.

"...I guess when I dreamed about this moment, I thought it would be different." she said tiredly. Her tears were still wet and cold on his shoulder, and blotted messily as she pulled his jacket back into place. He held completely still, even his breathing controlled and flattened.

I told you so. He thought. But he did her the courtesy of not saying it. It was too late now anyway. He said nothing, and he looked up at the stars, tried to figure out why anyone had ever thought there was any order to them, any order to anything. Everything was just out of control. Sakura didn't say anything either for a long moment, and then she said she was cold and went back inside. He waited, idly watching the bubbles in the pond and the way each glittered with a tiny curved reflection of the lanterns behind him. Then he went back inside, and secured the sliding glass door.

Hinata looked over Naruto's shoulder and saw him, her gaze gently met his, he saw the cooler white color of her eyes, that never seemed to warm up, even when the incandescent lights turned every other surface, flesh and paper, a warm gold. "...it's morning already?" Naruto announced unnecessarily. "That sucks. Guess we should get some sleep."

Hinata nodded, and murmured that of course Naruto and Sakura could sleep here, she'd have a futon prepared for them in one of her guest rooms down the hall. Sasuke watched Sakura make the proper polite demurral, Naruto dozily loading his arms around both of them, leaning between them with his stupid messy hair swaying as he leaned unsteadily. And Hinata insisted, just as softly, Sakura got on the phone to Kakashi, there was a short conversation. Sasuke watched the curl of her fingers over the white plastic receiver. Yes, he's here. Fine. He's okay. We're okay too. A little bit, but no one was hurt. No other fights. No, it's not a big hurry. I don't think he's going anywhere. Get some rest. Kakashi had been on his way back from a mission. He had injuries, mild from the way Sakura explained them in passing. He was going to catch a few hours sleep. And then he was going to come over to help.

They exchanged final good nights and then they looked at him for the same. He just turned, he felt too numbed out to speak.

And heard Hinata making hasty excuses for him. And Sakura assuring her just as quickly- it was okay, they were all tired. Naruto's voice revved itself up to that sunny cheerfulness again, that stupid joking tone. He always seemed to need to be that way, like he just couldn't handle what was going on otherwise. Sakura started taking control of the situation and he just could walk...

...away... to the lip of Hinata's closed frame of windows, to the garden out there, the stone and water and strange bonsai trees washed out in the spilled light. Most soft chatter behind him, and then Naruto and Sakura were taken off to their room. He was alone for a few moments, the room empty behind him, refilling with silence, like constant company could empty that silence out, require it to accumulate again, slower than before. Then there was the familiar soft footstep into the room, and Hinata closed the door.

"I thought they were your friends."

Hinata had a soft voice, even when she was saying things that should have come out as hard accusations. All the words had rounded corners.

"...you're so..."

Everything she said softened the edges and top note of a pointed demand. He turned. "I'm so what?" he asked, though he couldn't do the same, everything he said came out with an edge like a broken bottle.

She bowed her head every more, so that her face was entirely in the warm pools of shadow. "You act like you..."

But she clammed up, he couldn't drag another word out of her. The little connecting glance, when she looked up at him, her eyes like glimmers of ice in the darkness, like the memory of the day after the ice storm. He knew she had buried away something she was determined to not say. And he didn't want to hear it, either. He didn't want to have her on those firing lines.

"It doesn't involve this." he said. He was not going to say us, but then he thought that he should. There was no room for uncertaintly. "Not with us. It doesn't change anything."

"That's what Sakura-san said.."

He declined to ask exactly what Sakura had said, he'd heard enough of what Sakura had to say.

Hinata sat down tiredly at her desk. Her long kimono sleeve fell over the back and down to her knees. At least all that crap was out of her hair, he was getting tired of seeing her overdressed, too much paint and glitter. They probably meant it to be elegant, but she was so soft and delicately colored. It was like a geisha's painted face instead, too much white and blood red, the look was all wrong on her. Her hair was twisted back from the pins and he wanted to run his fingers through it. He'd only wanted to do that since he'd first saw her, saw the thick locks cut like precise satin ribbons.

And had done so, plenty of times. But now he hesitated before going to her, touching her. So much of her was still a mystery to him. She could have just been tired. It could have just been stress and grief. But...

But since she had no intention of going into it further, he put her room back in order. First all the cushions that had been scattered, he hated messiness. Disorder without- too much mocking reflection of the out of control mess that was his life. One of the pillows had a perfect impression of someone's back and shoulder pushed into it. Too big to be either of the girls, so it was Naruto. He grimaced at it, picked it up and shook it back to it's usual shape. Her silence had become so quietly absolute that it was pressing the oxygen out of the room. "It doesn't change anything." he said again, head bowed to his task.

Sakura's tears still on his skin. An echo like an inkstain. They'd taken so much from him without complaint that he'd gotten used to that- was he to decide now that he didn't need them? That she was being presumptuous, even assuming.. assuming he'd give a damn if they had nothing to do with him. If he lost their friendship. He was so used to the transaction of hurting them and them just always being there. He was removing every trace of them from this room. That wasn't his intent, he was just trying to restore order. But his idea of order restored always seemed to be a picture of himself alone, untouched by anyone else-

- a dock, maybe. The water and the sky and him, no one else, one human heart and endless sterility. And not even a full heart, broken pieces, pieces left out, a half-heart at best. Alone long enough that loneliness turned in on itself, became hatred for anything that would dare to offer itself now, any love or closeness, rage at it for not being there when it counted-

Just another ghost that would not be away from him. He ordered it away, his voice lacked conviction. It lingered. Poisoning the air, the atmosphere between them, hanging over them all night.

"I still like you." he said, over-concentrating on straightening her books now. They were fairly straight as it was. He made them straighter.

He'd run through different countryside, either helping Orochimaru shift his operation or fetching for him, one or the other- always. No stability. Everything around him always changing. The dislocation felt like a mix of shock and anesthetic, because he didn't even feel like himself anymore. He remembered walking through some little mountain town, the accents subtly different. Exhausted- unable to sleep from the time change. Some busybody of a monk stopping him, trying to tell him some bullshit, some legend about monsters that had once been alive and had been alone too long, monks that went into the wilderness and never came back. Monsters that had once been human. It was bullshit, but nothing he did meant anything anymore. He was a puppet of Orochimaru- though somehow he talked himself out of it. But that was just because Orochimaru could pull his strings. Somehow he wanted it too. Complicit, he thought. Completely complicit. And if he didn't like the image of the puppet, then he was the kabuki actor. Going through endless pointless symbolic motion. An actor, playing out a role. Wearing a mask.

Maybe nothing had mattered for so long that he didn't know what it was like to care about anything again. He wondered if that was how they saw him now, that was what was going on in their vigilant, quiet, reflexive watch on him. That he wore a human mask. But underneath it was the twisted shape of a monster.

"I like you too." Hinata said softly.

He was looking at the gold foil stamped on a book's spine, not her. He was taking in the details of the foil script. A sea adventure. "...you saw what happened." he said. Far away from himself.

"You're coming back to the village and you're going to go with the ANBU." she whispered, and he could barely hear her.

"You saw what happened with Naruto." he said, again. There was no point in not talking about it, it was sucking the oxygen out of the room around him. She was so troubled that she wouldn't even look at him. He looked at her, instead. So close, a handful of steps away. But he had the feeling she'd hunch herself into a ball, cringe away from him if he went to her now.

Which was not a pleasant feeling.

She nodded numbly. She looked at her hands, pressed together in her lap. He had only glanced, not wanting to stare and upset her further, but now he looked up and turned slightly to take her measure fully. She was also pressing her bare feet together nervously, one set of toes over the others. It really was like she was cringing, actually. A cringe with an hint of ice to it, of her silent disapproval. It never was spoken aloud and it never showed it's face openly. But you felt it.

It was something he had to fix. He faced her directly. "It's fine." he said firmly. "I'm just not used to them anymore. I'll get used to them again."

She nodded. She seemed to agree. But it was only something she did because she'd been taught to- be agreeable. He could see that. But there was nothing he could say, either. There was only a handful of answers he could give, and he'd said all of them. All there was to do now was wait, and Kakashi would arrive in a few hours. The ANBU would be with him.

...like a flock of silent crows, he thought. The hunter-nins and their sashes full of butcher tools. They cut the traitors and runaways to bits, they let nature devour the pieces. Sasuke did not fear death, and he didn't fear torture, he'd been taught as a small child to accept both. Maybe all he felt now was resignation. The criminal who relaxed in the handcuffs, slept in the police holding cell, secure now in the knowledge that nothing further could be done. Yes- exactly.

So he only had to wait.

Hinata didn't want to talk, that was obvious. Sex was also clearly out of the question. So he just got undressed, fished a fresh pair of cotton boxers from Hinata's wooden dresser, and went off to brush his teeth. The flowers by the sink, stamped into the wallpaper, embossed into the towels, gleaming from the labels of garish sparkly shampoos and soaps all reminded him of how violently different she was. She was like him, some shared set of circumstance. Distant fathers. Difficult families. Uncles that murdered one another. She was nothing like him. She was still silent and downcast when he returned to her bedroom. She had already gotten into bed, but it seemed clear too that he was now welcome to share it with her. He leaned over to catch her cheek in the cup of his hand and kiss her- off-centre, unpracticed. But the second kiss connected, and her hands slid over his neck and pulled him down to her. It was probably all right, she accepted this. She'd taken worse from her family, she probably expected almost nothing. She probably got less than that, most of the time.

And he'd be better than that, someday. Maybe sooner than she expected. "It'll be all right." he said to her.

She seemed to accept that too, but she was so encased in silence that it was hard to tell. She wouldn't even meet his eyes, and he didn't see how lifting her chin to make her look at him would accomplish anything. She was already upset. And it was almost morning. She curled up beside him after he doused the lanterns, and soon her breathing evened out. The tiny metallic click of her water clock took up the bottom line of the silence and darkness. The one who stared up at the faint moonlight on the ceiling, wondering how the hell he was going to fix this and make it all right again, the one who couldn't sleep despite being too tired to actually do anything, was him.

--

He was so mean to them.

It was the first word that came to her mind. Maybe it was because of Hanabi. Hinata felt the painful tug of a smile, one that couldn't stay normal. Tt bent under the worry, and of all the memories of their voices, she'd been listening to them talk all night. Naruto with too much edge and too much tension, Sakura seemingly always minutes away from yelling, Sasuke and his new, dark mood and the words- come on bastard wouldya just give it up and either you're coming back or you're not, don't do this and neither of you can do anything so leave me alone. He said that, more than once. She heard the practice and repetition in it- neither of you can do anything, nothing can change it.

It was as if he hated them.

That was her first thought, though she pilled reasons and memories on top of it, trying to blunt the echoing empty sound of it. Maybe- he was just upset, or he was just not used to being around them anymore- he'd said that, he didn't usually lie to her. Though It was true that she didn't know if he lied to her or not, she didn't know any part of him other than what he'd shown her. And how he was around her, in the relative privacy of her locked house. But she still didn't feel she was being lied to. There was no sinking feeling of things that she knew, but just didn't want to hold in her hands yet, things that would prove that this relationship was as empty as all the others, a very flimsy ceremony of words and her own even flimsier imagination-

- I think you're a good person. And she did. Even if he was being this way. She looked at the still landscape of blankets and pillows on her futon. It was midmorning, and she was crawled out of bed, her head all fuzzy with sleep and the sense that she should do something. No sense of what that was, just an empty space. An unformed worry. Sasuke didn't wake, he had fallen into a very deep sleep, she felt it in his breathing and the way he didn't stir. She watched him, just the wild ragged edge of flat black over the lump of featherdown quilt, the crisp morning light reduced him to whites, darks, simple brushwork.

Absolute stillness. She'd watched him sleep before, even lay next to him, pressed against the hollow of his clavicle and chest, the crook of his arm. The warmth and the steady liquid thump of his heart didn't dispel the stillness. That worried look on his face. No tension around his eyes while he slept, though she was used to seeing it on his face by daylight. He slept with a look of mild weary resignation on his face. Simple clean lines. Of disconnection. Like he was watching things come apart. Or knew in some timeless way that they were- they would be- and nothing could stop it.

Nothing can change it. She'd had her own thin comforting words to bury that idea, when he first said it she'd rushed to sooth him, to say no, it's all right, everything will be all right. But now linked to the memory was the crackle of the paper in the fire. Sasuke had moved very swiftly and snatched the letter from the flames. But the envelope had sank down. And she'd watched the fire curl up around it, and rise and all of her little words came apart too. It wasn't all right. You won't forget, he'd said after, with the first traces of his harsh, peculiar sympathy, bare as a tree's branch against a winter sky. It's okay, you can let go. You won't forget. Nothing can change it.

A good person. Helping her, and taking care of her. And being there for her, when Neji was not. And even when Neji had returned and could have been there, was still not there, Sasuke still was. Putting up with her family even though they treated him like garbage- for her sake, making his quiet promises, like they were being inscribed in ink or stone somewhere in his head, marked with the blood print, the signature of his whisper to her. I'll take care of you. And will that be enough? And even though he was so angry at Neji, he hadn't made trouble. And even if he was just as angry at Naruto and Sakura-

-he hadn't hurt them. Like he had before, because Hinata remembered those nights with her friends when the sake bottle emptied out, and when Naruto closed his eyes and remembered. Hinata saw the shadow moving under what he did say. But a killer would have struck by now. And a killer would have not been so angry all day and not acted. And she was a killer, she'd killed three people. Sakura was a killer, and Naruto was, and if Sasuke was too- and he almost certainly was- there was no space there, no difference between them. There was no room for denunciation on a ninja's moral compass, the points were squeezed too close together.

So- a good person. A difficult person. Angry- silent, glaring, with things she didn't understand and secrets that were not hers to know. But good, in the only way that could matter. Like her first intuition had said. And Sakura said she should trust that, and listen to it's silent voice. Sasuke said she should stand up for herself, that she should say things, that she had something to defend that should be hers, something to say that was worth listening to- because he showed her, and he listened. Sakura and Sasuke, who had not agreed on even the dinner menu, had actually found something to agree upon.

Unbeknownst to either of them.

She was tired and she knew there was nothing she could say, nothing that would make sense. He would ask her why his team was any of her business in the first place. Even if he was gentle about how he asked, she would have no good answer. It wasn't that she feared that her team could fly apart the same way, that her friendship with Kiba and Shino was as breakable. She knew that she could depend on both of them. So maybe it was just Naruto's team... that had gone wrong. Somehow.

Maybe it was just that she didn't like seeing Naruto and Sakura so unhappy. And she wanted to help. She wanted to have the ability to give them something back, finally, their lost teammate delivered to them safe and sound. And she was no hero and should not pretend to be one. Maybe it was just selfishness. Wanting everyone around her to be happy, so she could feel less afraid.

So none of it was worth saying. Sasuke gave her a series of indirect looks, questioning glances as if he wasn't sure why she was suddenly so quiet. But he eventually just went to bed. She slept, his heart murmuring under her ear. She woke hours later, the sun high over her by then. There was movement on the floors beneath her, the house fully awake and starting to hum with the day's activity. She'd gone to her desk.

The papers and pens there, the ink stamps, the colored fingers of wax and her metal signets to seal official Hyuga documents.

The sun was up and she had missed her early morning training. But that was not unusual now, she had been completely out of sorts since the ice storm. Since his sensei was coming to collect Sasuke, maybe it really was entirely out of her hands now, and there was nothing she should do at all.

Her ledger book was closed, filed neatly on top of her desk. She reached for it- there was always busywork to be done. But as she did so, she spotted the roll of papers and the inscription from her students- Hyuga-sensei. Their calligraphy was still a bit clumsy. And it was probably a collection of get well notes to her, her students were always very concerned about how she was doing. One of them, a class eighteen months ahead of her current cohort, had meticulously drawn her a picture of thirty students, every one accounted for, and a blue-haired teacher. Everyone was drawn smiling, with bright spots of candy red in their cheeks. The exact inscription- how when she was happy, everyone in the class was happy. Shikamaru had seen it on her desk and smiled thinly. It's true, when a woman isn't happy, no one's happy. She'd ignored him. She'd kept it. When she moved to a new classroom, she had it framed, sealed under glass so it wouldn't get faded and dusty. The new classes were fascinated by it. That was probably why they were so intent on pleasing her. They knew when she was faking it, her polite smile that she'd learned to plaster on her face didn't work for them, not the way it worked for other people. It didn't work for Naruto and Sakura either, they knew it was false too. She was getting better, she knew. But so slowly. She rarely smiled.

Maybe more pictures like that one would make her feel better now. She needed something to do, she couldn't just sit and do nothing. She reached for it, and she was working off the double-knotted twine when there was the polite, businesslike knock of one of her guards.

She was disheveled from bed and in her underwear under the cotton nightie she wore. It was too revealing, she fetched her dressing gown. She ran her hands hurriedly through her hair. Her reflection looked back clumsily from her vanity mirror, dry blotches from too much crying, dark smudges under her eyes. "Come in." she said, and tried to look somewhat decent and presentable, resting her hands nervously on the back of her desk chair.

The elder guard opened the door and bowed perfunctorily. His elaborately inked hands twitched, very slightly, as his alert white eyes glanced to Sasuke fast asleep on the futon, and then to Hinata in her nightclothes.

But his expression stayed cool and professional. "Pardon the interruption, Hinata-sama. You have a visitor."

She brightened a bit, she liked Naruto and Sakura's sensei. He was a strange man, but he seemed kind in his own eccentric way. There was his unfortunate taste in dirty novels, but Hinata had decided she could overlook this. She had watched him as he served as official witness as their wedding, and seen the way he quietly supported both of them. How he quelled the problem neatly later when Kiba had too much to drink and started picking a fight with Hanabi's sensei Choji. Now, he's not fat at all, he's just big boned. He has a healthy appetite and an impressive stature. Yes, like the sumo masters. So both of you just apologize, and everyone pet the dog, and- She'd seen the hint of sadness to him most of all. But maybe she was just very good at seeing that now, seeing how she felt herself reflected in the silent faces of others. Her softness and her empathy, it's few possible uses.

"Is it Hatake Kakashi-san?" she said hopefully. She would have to dress- very quickly, there would be no time to shower and wash her hair. But she could wash her face and maybe look a bit more normal. He would probably say nothing, he seemed to not care about other people's appearances. And maybe she could talk to him, and he could reassure her about the ANBU, and Sasuke could have a bit more time to sleep, and-

"No." the guard said, shaking his head firmly. "Not a visitor from outside the family. It's Neji-san. My brother is..." His sharp, handsome features took on a look of hard distaste. "...concerned that you and Neji-san are not getting along. He wanted you notified before we let him come in."

This was a bit unusual, but maybe it was clear how uncomfortable things were between herself and Neji. She wondered if she should have tried harder to act as if everything was fine in front of others, but it was too late now. She nodded. "I understand. Um.. thank you. Tell your brother that I'm fine. Please let Neji-niisan in. I'll be across the hall."

Maybe it was that Neji didn't usually come to visit her directly, too. They had never been close. And he had avoided her room, he seemed to think it would be intrusive for him to approach her there. She felt the same, she never went to his sleeping quarters. There were whole sections of the house, like safe zones and areas of refuge, where he could go and avoid her entirely. She would never cross over those invisible lines.

And he would not come into her bedroom, so she closed her door tightly to avoid disturbing Sasuke, and went to wait in a tatami room. There was sunlight there, birds in the bare branches and little green dashes, leaf buds on the trees outside. She had put a little clay pot of pussywillows in the circle of the window. Three branches, one of them forked, a few clipped willow twigs from the covered garden in with them. It was an unusual flower arrangement, but she had always been unusually good at creating useless beautiful things. She had pages and pages of pressed flowers, pots and collections of them. It was just the useful ninja skills that she had trouble with. And Neji was at the door before she heard him coming, he was always silent and on his guard.

She should have been used to it and not startled. "Good morning, Neji-niisan." she said, steadying her voice again. "I'm sorry, I'm not-" She wasn't dressed. She wasn't ready in any formal way for visitors. Neji silenced her with the briefest glance of impatience. "How.. how are you this morning?" she said, pushing ahead.

"Good morning Hinata-sama." he was very formal but somehow it never had any warmth of friendliness. The words were bare and serious. He sat down opposite her. He swiftly declined her further politeness, the offers of tea and breakfast. He wanted to know if Naruto and Sakura were still asleep, and where Sasuke was. She told him, and he nodded. "I trained very early today so no one would see me. But this," he pressed one finger to the metal plate of his forehead protector. "will be known by tonight. Your guard already knows. My chakra is different now, Hinata-sama."

We're both in trouble. The words were plain in the air, as if he really had said them.

And it was her fault. I accept the consequences of my actions, she'd said to Sasuke. And she would here too. She twisted the little tremor of anxiety out of her voice. "I... I understand. Is the seal-"

"It's gone." Neji said abruptly. For a moment she thought he would take off his bandana and bindings and show her, her stomach flopped with sudden worry, but he just stared back at her. "The jutsu is useless. There's nothing for it to connect with."

She didn't want to try the jutsu again, she felt sick just forming the seals. She nodded. "I'm..." She was glad it had worked, and that she'd copied the removal technique properly. She was always so nervous, she worried she'd make a mistake. She could get worried enough to stumble over the simplest things.

Neji waited, his lips thinned slightly, and when she was obviously not going to continue he said "Everyone is going to know soon. The council is absolutely going to know, and very soon. Your guard may report it as soon as he sees a senior member of the family... That's his duty, Hinata-sama." He said that sternly as she drew breath to object. "Yes, a personal guard may conceal information from the administrators and the council on the order of the clan leader. But you have not established that condition with your guards yet. They are not yet operatives for you as Hiashi-sama's guard was for him. You have been clan leader for less than seventy two hours."

All of this was true. Hinata nodded. The heavy dampness of tears settled over her throat, but her eyes stayed dry. Maybe she was getting a bit tougher. She needed to be so much stronger to handle this, she needed to be exactly like her father.

"And you have spent most of that time waiting hand and foot on Uchiha Sasuke." Neji concluded, his arms crossed now and his eyes closed in cool irritation. "That's fine. Actually- no, it's not fine at all, but it's not something we will discuss now. The situation is what it is. We have a bigger problem. Hinata-sama, the council is going to call for you and you are going to have to answer them."

The subject was being forcibly changed. And she should go along with it, Neji was right. This was not the time. "Don't say that." she whispered.

She always found herself looking at her hands, or her feet, the ends of her long hair floating under her bowed head, swaying as she trembled. She never saw how anyone reacted to these tiny little acts of pathetically small courage.

"Hinata-sama," Neji said, she heard his irritation and impatience with trying to drag the words out of her.

"Don't talk about him that way, he's no worse than I am. And I'm not perfect either." It was getting easier to force the words out. She knew Neji wouldn't hurt her. And if he was still speaking to her now, he must be willing to tolerate this from her. She knew this was right, too. It was always easier to stand up for others than herself.

"He has a reputation," Neji began coldly.

"I.." her lips were dry and she licked them nervously. "I do too. I'm weak. Everyone-"

"Hinata-sama," he was tired of this, she was wasting his time.

"-I know, Neji-niisan. But I... I can't blame him. And if you accept me, you should accept him too."

"So you keep telling me. So Uzumaki keeps telling me too. All of you so intent on this lost cause... it's like a communicable insanity."

She nodded. She accepted that from him. He was right, this wasn't the time to even try to argue through this. And- she had known what she was doing, she just feared going through with it. But it wasn't so wrong...

"I'm going to tell the council the truth." she said. She curled her fingers tightly around one another, her fingertips were going red with the pressure. "It was my father's will that the seal be removed."

Another moment where she didn't see Neji's reaction, but she could imagine it. "Because you saw a ghost."

"Because of my father's spirit. And because..." she knew that Neji didn't believe, but that didn't mean it wasn't true, or that she was just being stupid. Her own faith meant something to her, there had to be some reason she still felt so connected to this house. "...of the bloodline. And my part in it."

"And they might accept that superstitious nonsense, or they may not." Neji said with weary discontent. It was only the same thing he had said many times before, this same old argument.. "That they let Uzumaki come stampeding in so soon after the funeral makes me think they are under that same delusion, nonsense about stars and bloodline constellations-"

Hinata let him complain, it was something she had done many times before as well. There was nothing she could say to answer his anger and his objections. They were always rightfully held. He had been brutalized- by her family- by the bloodline that she stood at the end of, holding up it's accumulation of crimes. She let his words surge past her. She listened- but part of her was thinking. She had an idea. A little green sprout, tiny and curled up like the buds on the trees. She had the power to take off Neji's seal. She had the power to protect him now, too. She had the power to protect...

"-but I don't think you're being systematic about this, Hinata-sama. We don't know who supports you yet."

...Sasuke as well, maybe, if she dared. If she could actually do it, connect the little twinge of the idea into action, dare to go through with it. She worried distractedly that Neji could see what she was thinking, that he'd stop her, that he'd-

"This is my right." she said quietly from under her hair. It fell into her face and hid her, she felt safer that way. "I'm the heir of the Hyuga clan."

"You're the leader of the Hyuga clan." Neji corrected.

"I'm the leader," she repeated, uncertainly. Her father had said this many times, she had heard the iron in his tone, it came to mind immediately. She could hear how different her voice sounded from her father's. But she sat up. She could at least try to act less terrified, less like a shy little mouse who hid under her thick hair and couldn't meet anyone's eyes. "I'm the leader..." she said, but now her voice was distant. "...Neji-niisan..." She looked slowly up and over to him.

He looked at her like he had no idea what she would do next. She was completely out of control, she was acting like someone he couldn't understand anymore.

"I need your help." she said. The direct morning sunlight made a glossy red sheen in his hair, haloed the crown of his head like fiery laurels.

He frowned. "With what? With the council?"

She shook her head. "No.. before that. I need..."

She didn't dare say Sasuke's name, it would just make Neji angry. But there was no way to say this otherwise, she couldn't just mislead him and have him find out. He'd understand... as soon as he saw the documents. As soon as they were laid out and sent to the Hokage's office.

"..I need you to cosign." she whispered. "I need... Neji-niisan, please."

She needed his signature beside hers, she needed a standing member of the ANBU to be a legal precaution for the village, to shore up the dirty trick she was about to pull- her, a little Hyuga mouse. But it was easier when it wasn't just her own useless life to protect. It was easier when it was someone else.

"The village can't take.. they can't imprison a member of the house, they can't-" It had to be true, it was why Sasuke's father had written so many nasty letters, and her own father had written so many nastier ones back. It was because the village's agreements with the Hyuga clan were full of little trapdoors and clauses, little pressure points just like this one. She didn't want him taken out of her house, she didn't want him tortured, harmed, she wanted to be the one who had to be consulted before he could be executed, before he could be dragged from her house like a criminal-

-she could save him. She could protect him. The dangerous thrill of doing it was so close, she was almost shaking. But the strange glancing touch of strength was with her. That glowing awareness that it was right, and she was not powerless.

Neji was watching her, his frown dissolving into complete bafflement.

"Hinata-sama, what-" he said, as he saw her quickly get to her feet. "Hinata-sama!"

He followed her to the door. He didn't turn his back, or walk away, he didn't shut her out. He followed her down the hall. "Hinata-sama! Oh for... What are you going to do now?"

--

He must have slept. But he never noticed it until he woke again. He saw the time difference. He used to sleep so shallowly in Orochimaru's lair that his dreams would assemble from the brick and mortar around him, the flicker of the bare candle melted onto the wall.

Not here. It was safe enough, he slept fully. Hinata was there. Then she was gone. Her voice was in the hall, then the reedy shout of her cousin. Then nothing. Silence. Sunlight. He was dreaming.

It was all over now. So when the time came, all the struggle had gone out of him. He'd thought Naruto would wake him, jump on the futon and strip the covers off- rise and shine, jackass! But the hand that shook him from sleep was a gentle grip on his wrist, small warm fingers. The intricate, reactive, paradoxically gentle touch that her bloodline and it's techniques had built into her.

Passing rapidly out of dream state and reality falling back in on him, in pieces of the day, the time, the place- what was happening- now. He didn't open his eyes and for a moment just felt down her arm, her shoulder, and the cold smoothness of her thick hair and the warmth at the nape of her neck. "You have to get up, the ANBU are here and-"

Her words came in that piecemeal awareness, he heard ANBU and now and here and the drab comforting ordinariness of a dream that was not a nightmare instead resolved into the grey half-light of morning.

Indirect sunlight, spilling in on another side of the house now. Time change. Dreams.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"-your sensei Kakashi-san is here. I've made some.. arrangements." Softer, a whisper for only him to hear "Please don't be angry," And a misty collection of other words, the sound magic signal of her worries. He just curled his arm around her shoulders and cuddled her against him. Clumsily, his muscles still stiff, his wounded arm still tight and numbed. Hinata fit herself against him like she had before; and he'd pictured the same mental image of a heavy swan's wing, folding it's fluffed layers of feathers into sleek white limbs, her delicate body.

"It's all right," he said, his own voice blurred by sleep. "Whatever you've decided."

That she decided and took initiative was good enough. He trusted her, and as he held her and her pulse thumped hard against his cheek, she told him what this was all about. She didn't want to relinquish him to the village, she was invoking Hyuga legal clauses and she had lawyers, there were agreements the Hyuga made with the village. The village could press the issue but her strategy was sheltered from that by the trouble this would cause the Hokage's office, the sheer hassle. And the Fifth was already bending the rules for Naruto and had always bent the rules for Naruto- Sasuke grimaced and thought that one more bent rule was nothing, by now. Naruto broke anything that got in his way.

Or that wouldn't go along with him. But resistance had aged overnight, changed the face it showed to him like it had donned a new mask, turned into a sleepy resignation. Like his anger had been the puppet pieces of childishness, really. Trying to break Naruto's comic timing, keep from being his straight man once again, trying to squirm out of admitting that Naruto had been right.

And succeeded. Like he wanted to struggle just a bit more before letting Naruto win. But the struggle had gone out of him. "It's fine with me." he said. The ANBU would still have him, they could still do their work. They couldn't take him over the dividing lines of Hyuga property. The Hokage's office was allowing this. The Hyuga would provide space and total privacy. The Hokage would let Naruto accomplish his latest bull-charge through their china shop of rules.

But this was not Naruto, this was Hinata. "I want you to be safe and I don't want you to have to leave my house." She must have known that he would need time to even get used to coming back to it. If he were cast out now he might wander off in his own enforced solitude, unable to find his way back, unwilling to even try, he knew he could easily throw himself into that kind of pointless self-exile. But that she knew it was worrisome. And convenient, saving him the trouble and misery of trying to explain himself to her.

She had some guilty admissions to make about the documents that would classify him as Hyuga property now, the way she herself was, someone fully in their custody and not to be removed without their permission. He shrugged. The words didn't matter. The rage needed more heat and power than that to roar to life. Whatever protected him, whatever got him safely through this. It was a gift from her, a little glimmer of proof that her love and her affection might be real.

So no struggle in him, as he dressed, and as Naruto leaned in the doorway, mostly silent now. A few words came out of him, curls of Kyuubi flame or that nightmare recollection of towers and seas of bubbles. A few stupid insults, a quickly sketched map of their usual quarrel- over nothing, and all he heard was the worry under it. And the relief. And the blue of Naruto's eyes.

"Don't worry." he finally allowed.

"I'm not worried," Naruto said, finding his bright confidence. "I'm just happy."

What are you happy about, idiot? No- he didn't have the patience to set up Naruto's goddamn jokes for him.

"I'm happy you came back. That you're back with us." Naruto said anyway, as Sasuke knew he would. Naruto seemed to wait for space to talk again more than he listened, than he needed to hear anything back. " And Kakashi says they can fix what Orochimaru did. I always knew-"

That this day would come. That if Sasuke didn't end it- by his own hand, by forcing Itachi's hand, by just throwing himself on the pyre of that self-hatred- then the demon and the world and the forces of nature themselves, perverse as they were, would join hands with Naruto's stupid goddamn ideas, his stupid insistence. if Sasuke didn't fight that to the very end then he'd slip, and he'd fall...

..and Naruto would catch him. And Naruto would win. Naruto would save him, just like he knew. Because he couldn't make that final killing blow. And if you weren't going to give in to Naruto than you just had to kill him. Or yourself. Nothing else would stop him.

It was as good as an admission. This idiot had also always known that.

"-that I'd definitely bring you back to Konoha, and Sakura-chan knew too, and everyone except you."

Sasuke harrumphed. But he didn't bother to argue.

But Naruto wasn't finished. He grinned, all lit up with his triumph now. He knew he'd won. He had something in his pocket, something heavy. His nails clicked against metal.

"The next time I see you," he said, his face split in that stupid, determined, comforting grin. "You'll put this back on."

He pulled out his hand, and in it was a Konoha forehead protector.

On it was a scratch. Untouched.

That Konoha leaf. The banner of those who had ordered the massacre. The war criminals, but also the insignia of this idiot, and that pushy girl, his best friends in the world, both of them. This was theirs too. Naruto and that damn forehead protector, that scratch, those memories. He'd make this decision later. The ANBU would siphon the snakes from him. And then he had some business to take care of with Konoha.

"Fine." he said flatly.

Naruto tilted his head, and his floppy blond spikes fell over the other side of his face. "Yeah?" he said. The triumph welled under his voice.

Sasuke was finished dressing. He'd folded his sleep clothes and put them away, put on a fresh jacket and undershirt, remade Hinata's bed. He walked to the door, closing that distance between Naruto and himself. Watching Naruto watch him back, liquid points of blue, laser light, like that point of prism-cut sun that had pierced down at the Valley, pressed itself to Naruto like an signal from the heavens. This idiot always did have so much encouragement. The damn elements themselves lined up behind him.

But never mind. Sasuke had things to do.

"I said it was fine." he repeated, gruffly. "I can't wear it until I'm cleared by the ANBU. I told you. I'm going now. Don't bother Hinata while I'm gone. Out of the way."

"Haha." Naruto said happily. He moved aside with an elaborate sweep of his arm.